


bury me in galaxies (i'll call it home)

by Alemantele



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode: e049 Old Oak Doors, Hehehe, M/M, carlos is kind of funny here?, spoilers? ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2194089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alemantele/pseuds/Alemantele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil’s voice is fading from his mind, and Carlos laughs and throws his arms open and falls down onto sand made of stars.</p><p>The smiling god’s eyes do not materialize here, but Carlos somehow senses its presence every time he turns his head. He falls and falls and wonders why he ever stayed so long in Night Vale in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bury me in galaxies (i'll call it home)

The first time Carlos sees the smiling god, it is night.

It is night, but when he stares into the blinking red light atop the mountain that should not be there, there is something like a warm summer’s breeze running through the room. Carlos tastes sand in his mouth and his skin itches and he spends far too long staring out the window at something he isn't quite sure is real or not.

When he goes to sleep that night he can feel vast eyes on his back.

 

* * *

 

The first time Cecil sees the smiling god is when Carlos is cooking. It is overcast and the sky is dark and Carlos wonders why the god has decided to show itself to Night Vale.

“It’s a mirage,” he says and it isn't quite a lie yet. The god is above them and cannot touch them and Carlos repeats this to himself over and over again until the mountain retreats and the sky is blank once again.

 

* * *

 

“Why?” Carlos asks one day, sitting in his lab. Across from him, on the wall, there is a pair of eyes like hot embers, shifting yellow and gold and orange and red like the flares of the sun. Carlos does not look, but he feels their heat on the side of his face.

The god does not say anything, but Carlos feels the room rumble.

He steps away from his instruments, still blinking and beeping and running, and the room shakes and the eyes glow all the brighter still.

But Carlos does not notice this, because his mind is flooded with whispers from a time gone by. He sees the desert with ruins and a mountain and the blinking red light and he has never wanted anything more in his entire life. The god’s eyes shiver, and Carlos sees in his mind beams of sunlight crossing the desert in wide sweeping arcs and he wants to run his hands through the sand and drink in the air until he is dizzy from it.

The god shows him images of a world so close yet so far and Carlos _wants._

Night Vale is North America’s most scientifically interesting community, he said, so long ago, but Night Vale’s antics are predictable and though Carlos’s instruments beep away, he feels anxious boredom settle on him again once and for all. It was like this in New York after a week and like this in Berlin after a month and like this in Tokyo after more months and after a year and three months in Night Vale, he thought he’d finally found the place where he could stay, but Carlos can already predict what kind of pizza Big Rico’s is going to put out the next week.

He sits by the window, closes his eyes, and lets the god wrap him in dreams.

 

* * *

 

Cecil calls him brave and Carlos wants to scoff. He stands at the door of the house that does not really exist and wonders what is inside. What is bravery in the face of exploration? Carlos does not need to be brave, he only needs to be selfish. He only needs to feel the desire of knowing all there is to know, of figuring things out, of learning a new place like a new home. It burns in his veins and Carlos swallows a wide wide grin when he pulls the door open and sees the desert for the first time.

The smiling god looms ahead, and Carlos runs into the sands and he feels the familiar warmth flood his being.

Cecil’s voice is fading from his mind, and Carlos laughs and throws his arms open and falls down onto sand made of stars.

The sky is inky and dark, but the sun shines forever above him, and there are tiny pinpricks of light beneath his arms, and Carlos is happier than he’s ever felt in a long time.

 

* * *

 

He is at home here.

Galaxies shift beneath his feet, and when he measures a pillar from the ruins he has only seen in dreams so far and gets twenty-five inches clockwise but thirty inches counter clockwise, Carlos can’t quite hide the grin as he scribbles in his notebook.

The sky should not be dark when the sun is shining. Eyes should not float. Caverns that send emotions shivering down his spine should not exist. Carlos has so many questions about it all and he loves that there is so much to answer because if he can’t answer them all then he will never ever be bored again. His voice echos through the great ruins when he shouts, and Carlos wonders if he can create something to map out the pillars. 

The smiling god’s eyes do not materialize here, but Carlos somehow senses its presence every time he turns his head.

It is almost comforting.

 

* * *

 

Cecil is waiting though, and the thought nags at the back of his mind, because it is a problem but a problem he already knows the solution to.

Carlos does not hate Cecil, but he cannot say that he loves Cecil either.

When Carlos saw Cecil for the first time with eyes the colour of the sky, he wondered if it was just a Night Vale thing or if it was some sort of rare genetic mutation. When Carlos saw Cecil for the first time all dressed up on their first date, a thousand questions raced through his mind at the radio host’s choice of clothing and he loved it. When Carlos listens to Cecil’s radio show at night (he never turns to the channel, but it manages to find him anyways) he wonders if any of it is true and the uncertainty made him love Cecil.

But when Cecil asks him if they want to just stay in again for what feels like the hundredth time, or when Cecil tells him to be a good boyfriend and cook, and when Cecil’s compliments grow predictable down to whether he will refer to Carlos as _perfect_ or _gorgeous_ this time, Carlos stops loving him.

So he leaves a voicemail, and does not say anything further, because he cannot hate Cecil.

It will be a game then, Carlos thinks. It will be a game and it will be entertaining, and maybe he can still love Cecil in that way.

 

* * *

 

He spends his days taking measurements and snapping pictures with his phone.

The battery does not run out and he marvels at it.

 

* * *

 

When the giant army of masked men return, Carlos’s face splits in a grin and he runs after them with his glasses askew and his phone raised in his hand and the feeling of sand shifting under his feet has never been more welcome.

 

* * *

 

Cecil calls, and Carlos answers, but he cannot stop himself from saying the things he does.

 _There are things greater than us,_ he says and sweeps his hand out towards the dark and beautiful desert and has to bite back laughter that is already bubbling in his throat. And he is here to learn and he has to _know_ and this is science. This is asking questions and not getting answers and figuring things out anyways.

Carlos stands under a starry sky lit by an impossible sun and feels it singing in his blood, feels mystery and legend drenching him and wonders why he ever stayed so long in Night Vale in the first place.

 

* * *

 

He tells Cecil about Doug to keep things interesting. Cecil in adoration he had heard before, just like Cecil in love Cecil in wonder Cecil hanging onto his every word.

What does Cecil sound like biting back anger from the pit of his stomach? What does Cecil sound like crushed and despondent? These are parts of him Carlos has never heard before.

So he talks about Doug and then turns off his phone and wonders how angry Cecil is wonders if Cecil has stopped loving him yet.

Would Cecil ever stop loving him?

Carlos wonders and wonders and wonders.

 

* * *

 

When he listens to Cecil’s rendition of the horoscopes, he feels his heart beat harder than usual. Cecil is all passive aggressiveness and anger and loneliness and Carlos has heard this directed towards Strex or whatever else monster of the week on the radio show but he has never heard it addressed to _him_ before.

Cecil’s voice washes over him, and Carlos pauses in his calculations to gaze off thoughtfully into the distance.

 

* * *

 

Later, he tells Cecil he loves him, and it is only half a lie.

 


End file.
